DraftKings Single-Round Fantasy Golf Contests: Now Live

DraftKings has introduced a new fantasy golf format just in time for the 2018 Masters Tournament. Single-round fantasy PGA contests last for just a single round of play, giving players more chances to play and win during tournaments with true daily fantasy golf games.

The new format will go live on Friday to coincide with the second round of the Masters. Additional single-round contests will go live on Saturday and Sunday for the third and fourth rounds.

Note: Traditional, tournament-long contests will still continue to run as normal moving forward. That includes the $3.5 million Fantasy Golf Millionaire contest which will be getting underway on Thursday morning. That one will keep you locked in for all four rounds, but a $1,000,000 first place prize is hard to beat. You can check it out at DraftKings.com.

Single-round golf contests will follow the same basic structure used in normal daily fantasy golf games at DraftKings. You’ll still pick six players using a $50,000 salary and score points according to the standard scoring rules except no bonuses will be given for tournament position during the first rounds. Single-game contests covering the final round of any tournament will introduce tournament finish scoring bonuses just like you would see in a standard DraftKings golf contest.

What this means for golf fans is your options are about to expand significantly at DraftKings. Rather than locking your lineups on Thursday and waiting until Sunday, you can now get in on actual one-day contests every day of the tournament. Lineups can be edited right up until the start time of each individual round.

Fantasy Sites More Willing to Push the Envelope

It wasn’t all that long ago that fantasy sites shied away from anything that could be construed as a contest based on a single game. The exception granted to fantasy sports by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) is worded in such a way that it was interpreted to mean all online fantasy games must involve at least two games.

The relevant text from the UIGEA states that “all winning outcomes reflect the relative knowledge and skill of participants and are determined primarily by accumulated statistical results of the performance of individuals (athletes in the case of sports events) in multiple real-world sporting or other events.”

We only have to look back to the 2015 Masters to find a time when DraftKings interpreted that law differently than it does now. Back then, the big question was whether fantasy golf covering a single tournament was legal. DraftKings spokeswoman Femi Wasserman told Golf.com at the time that they believed their golf product was legal because they viewed golf tournaments as “several games in one. So we look at each round as an individual game.”

DraftKings has obviously changed its opinion on what constitutes “multiple real-world sporting” now that they’re willing to host contests revolving around a single round. It could be that DraftKings believes it has a strong legal case, that they want to push beyond FanDuel’s comfort zone, because they’re feeling way less regulatory heat these days, because they know states are now more concerned with sports betting or a combination of any of the above.

Whatever the case may be, it’s clear DraftKings is feeling more confident of its legal standing these days. DraftKings DFS has traditionally been the more aggressive of the two fantasy sites, but FanDuel DFS has been willing to push the envelope a bit as well.

DraftKings kicked off this single-game trend earlier this year by announcing single-game NFL contests just in time for the playoffs. FanDuel followed suit shortly after with its own single-game contests for the Super Bowl LII. Both sites have since done the same for fantasy baseball.

Similar Posts